Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
by Ghislaine Emrys
Summary: Jed and Han have to write compositions about the Declaration of Independence for school.  It's a contest-who will win?


By Ghislaine Emrys

It was a beautiful September day and all the crops had been harvested without difficulty. Now, the women were busy canning and preserving whatever the men hadn't taken to town to sell. And the children were back in school, though not all of them were happy to be there.

Miss Collins, the new schoolteacher, was standing at the door to welcome the children as they entered the one-room schoolhouse. The younger children came in and sat quietly at their desks in the front while the older children, those ten and up, entered more noisily and sat in the back.

"Good morning, children," Miss Collins greeted her charges.

"Good morning, Miss Collins," they replied in unison.

"Today is a special day. Can anyone tell me why?" The primly-dressed teacher surveyed the room and her green eyes landed on a seven-year old boy, one of the Johnson twins, who had his hand up. "Yes, Jake?"

"Um, Daisy is about ready to give birth, ma'am. Is that what you mean?" The class snickered. Eighteen sets of eyes studiously avoided looking at Miss Collins.

"No, Jake, that's not what I was thinking of, though I'm sure a baby calf will be very special for your family. I'm thinking of something that's very special for all of us, not just for you."

No one else ventured a guess. Miss Collins sighed. Sometimes being a teacher was not the easiest job in the world. But there weren't many opportunities for respectable unmarried women, so she had to make the best of things.

"Children, today is September 17th. It's a very important day in the history of our country. Does that help you remember why today is special?" She didn't get her hopes up that someone would know. Most of the children at the school weren't really interested in book learning.

"Ma'am, Miss Collins, I know!" Thirteen-year old Marcy Peterson was jumping up and down with excitement at having the correct answer. "Today's the day the War for Independence began, back in 1770. That's it, isn't it, ma'am?" Marcy was very pleased with herself. She didn't often get the right answers but she knew this one, for sure.

Miss Collins sighed again. "No, Marcy, the War for Independence began in April 1775. But thank you for trying, dear." Marcy sat down, deflated.

Slowly, a hand in the back of the room went up. A little smile appeared on the teacher's face. Maybe this boy, one of the few who actually enjoyed coming to school, would have the answer. "Hannibal, do you know why today is special?"

Eleven-year old Hannibal Heyes, known as Han to everyone but his parents and the teacher, brown eyes sparkling with intellectual curiosity, stood up to speak. "Ma'am, September 17, 1787, is the day our Constitution became the law of the land, ma'am."

"That is correct. Thank you, Hannibal." The boy sat down, inwardly pleased with himself but not letting it show on his face. Miss Collins, however, did permit herself to smile at him. Teaching children like Hannibal made all the other disappointments worth it.

"Yes, children, the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified—that means approved—on September 17, 1787. This is a very important document and we will study it thoroughly."

Miss Collins ignored the groans and continued. "However, before you can study the Constitution, there is another very important document you must learn about. That is the Declaration of Independence. Without the Declaration of Independence, we would not have the Constitution, so you will learn about that first. As you should all know," and here Miss Collins looked pointedly at Marcy, "the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. On this day, the United States of America was born."

The children watched Miss Collins as she walked to the chalkboard. On it, she wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

When she finished, she told the children to copy the sentence onto their slates. As the children struggled with the words, Miss Collins first read and then explained that the sentence came from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

"We will talk about the meaning of this sentence tomorrow and why the Fourth of July is so important in our nation's history. For now, I want all of you to write a composition about the last part. Your assignment is to explain what "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" means to you. You may start now. Your composition is due tomorrow. And, children…" They all looked up. "There will be a prize for the best composition. Now go work by yourselves; no helping each other this time, please."

Along with many other children, Jedediah Curry groaned again. How come nine-year olds had to do the same work as the older kids? It just wasn't fair. Well, maybe his best friend Han could help him out. Han sure was smart and he was bound to have some good ideas.

Jed slowly took out a piece of paper from his desk, picked up his pencil, and wrote "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" at the top of the page. Then he stared at the paper. He had no idea what he was going to write about. He slumped in his seat. It was going to be a long day. He hoped suppertime would come soon.

Meanwhile, Han was busily scribbling away on his paper. Jed snuck a glance and saw that it was already half-filled with words. Sheesh! How much could Han possibly write? Jed shook his head in amazement.

When Miss Collins finally announced that it was time for the children to go home for supper, Jed was one of the first out the door. He waited for Han so they could walk together.

"Han, what does liberty mean?"

"It means freedom, Jed." Han knew his cousin didn't read much and he liked sharing his knowledge with the younger boy. Jed was quiet as he thought about the word.

"Han, what does pursuit mean?"

"It means chasing or following something." The boys began to sweat under the afternoon sun as they slowly walked towards their homes a half mile away from the school.

"Han," Jed began again. "What's happiness?"

Han stared at Jed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, Han, that word I do know." Jed grinned. It wasn't often he could get the better of his cousin.

The boys split off to their homes when the path they were on divided. After supper they did their chores and then their schoolwork, which kept them busy for the rest of the day. They didn't see each other until the following morning.

Jed was real curious about Han's composition. He really wanted to see what his friend had written, but he didn't want to share his own work. He knew it wasn't very good but it was all he could think of. By the time Jed made up his mind to ask Han if he'd show him, they had reached the schoolhouse.

"Good morning, children," Miss Collins greeted her charges, as usual.

"Good morning, Miss Collins," they replied in unison, as usual.

Jed and Han went inside and sat down in their seats.

"Children, please put your homework on your desks and Marcy will collect it." Marcy beamed and jumped up to do what the teacher said. If there was one thing Marcy was good at, it was jumping up from her seat. "While I read your compositions, I want you to practice your times tables. The older children will help the younger ones."

Miss Collins picked up the first composition and started reading. When she came to Jedediah Curry's composition, she read it once and hesitated. Then she read it again:

_Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness_

_By Jedediah Curry_

_Life means being uhlive. I want my ma and my pa and me and Han and his pa and his ma to have a good life. Liberty means being free. I want to be free from going to school. Pursuit of happiness means being happy. I will be happy if me and Han can go fishing evry day. I will be happy if I dont have to do chores. I will be happy if my ma can make eggs and pancakes and bacun and bredd for brekfast evry day. This is what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means to me._

Simple, but effective, Miss Collins thought. Really, she hadn't expected much from the younger children, and she suspected that Hannibal had helped his cousin at least a little bit. But Jedediah was smarter than he thought he was, and for a nine-year old, this was a pretty good piece of writing.

Miss Collins continued reading. Amazingly, the children were behaving well and so far she hadn't had to rap anyone's knuckles, not even Jake's. She was anticipating an interesting composition from Hannibal Heyes and when she came to it, she wasn't disappointed. He'd written:

_Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness_

_By Hannibal Heyes_

_These words are very important. Maybe they are the most important words in the whole Declaration of Independence. They aren't the first words but that don't matter, they're still important. I am going to explain what they mean to me and you will see why they are important._

_Without life, you can't be nothing. Everyone knows you have to be alive to be somebody. A rock ain't alive and a gun ain't alive so they ain't important. A fish is alive and a tree is alive and they are important but people are more important. It's people that make life good. Sometimes they can make life bad too but most people I think they try to be good. I want to be good too._

_If people don't got liberty, then they ain't free. Being free is important. If your free, then you can do what you want. Slaves ain't free. They can't do what they want. They have to do what their told. I would hate to be a slave because I want to be free. I know I'm just a kid and I'm not really free now but when I'm older and have my liberty I'm gonna help people be free so they can do what they want._

_People ought to be happy. But sometimes it ain't easy to find happiness. Sometimes you got to search for it. It might take a long time to find it. Like my ma and my pa searched and when they found each other, then they were happy. I want to be happy like that someday. But right now Jed and me we are best friends and we are real happy and I reckon that won't ever change._

_This is what Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness means to me._

Actually, Miss Collins was very impressed. Although she'd never tell him, because she was fairly sure he knew it already, Hannibal had a first-rate mind and she hoped he'd continue his studies long after he graduated from her school. Hannibal could make something of himself, he could.

Twenty minutes later, she was done reading all the compositions. Miss Collins clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "Children," she began. Eighteen sets of eyes looked up expectantly. "You have all done excellent work, thank you." Eighteen children started to fidget. Miss Collins hurried on.

"I know I said I would give a prize to the best composition, but I've changed my mind. It was just too hard to decide on one." Some of the children were relieved but others, including Han, were not; they had put a lot of effort into their compositions and had hoped to win the prize, whatever it was.

"So I'm going to give two prizes instead," Miss Collins continued. "One prize is for the best composition by a student in the six to ten year old group, and one prize is for the best composition by a student in the eleven to fourteen year old group." At that announcement, all the children looked around the room, wondering who the winners would be. Jed was pretty sure his cousin would be the winner for the older group and he turned around to give Han a grin.

"Jedediah Curry, will you please come up here?" Jed whipped his head around and his mouth dropped open.

"Me, ma'am?" he asked in shock. Nothing like this had ever happened to him in school before. He slowly walked to the front of the room.

"Yes, Jedediah. Your composition was short and to the point and it expressed your ideas very clearly. Congratulations!" Miss Collins gave him a big smile when he reached her desk. "Would you like to read your composition to the class, Jedediah?"

"Uh, no, thank you, ma'am," he mumbled. He saw Han smiling at him with encouragement but there was absolutely no way he was going to read out loud in front of everyone.

"All right. I'll read it then. You may return to your seat and I'll give you your prize in a moment." Jed went and sat down, thankful to have escaped that ordeal, though he turned bright red when Miss Collins read his composition to the class.

"Now, then. There is still one more prize to give." Miss Collins paused; she was enjoying the suspense she was creating in the older children. "This prize goes to a student who not only wrote about his…" All the older girls sighed in disappointment. All the older boys looked at Hannibal Heyes in expectation. "… personal life but also managed to include some philosophical details as well. That is, he wrote about some big and general ideas. Congratulations, Hannibal Heyes! Please come up here."

This time, Han let his smile show. As he walked to the front of the room, he looked over to Jed and brown eyes shared a secret look of pleasure with blue eyes. They'd have a lot to talk about later!

"Hannibal, would you like to read your composition to the class?"

Jed shook his head. What kind of question was that? Of course, Han would like to read it! Han loved to be the center of attention. Jed listened as Han read and was impressed with the way the words all flowed together and made such good sense.

Han finished and returned to his seat. He'd known his composition was good but he hadn't been sure if it was good enough. One or two of the other students also had a way with words. It was nice to know the teacher thought he had the ability to make people sit up and pay attention to what he had to say.

Miss Collins interrupted his thoughts. "Jedediah and Hannibal, I'm sure you would like to know what your prizes are." Both boys fastened their eyes on the teacher. Jed hoped it wouldn't be something like the "honor" of washing the chalkboard for one week. Han didn't care what it was; winning the competition was what had mattered to him.

"I am very pleased to give you these prizes. I've been saving them for a special occasion and I think this is just such an occasion. Boys, I am very proud to give you your very own copies of the Declaration of Independence!" Miss Collins removed two parchment scrolls tied with red ribbons from her desk and, walking over to each boy, handed them to Jed and Han.

"I hope you will read these every Fourth of July and on many other days, too. The Fourth of July is a very special day but we can celebrate this holiday on any day, whenever we want to show our respect for our country. God bless America!" Miss Collins finished with a flourish, returned to her desk and sat down. She gazed at the room full of children, her eyes lingering on Hannibal Heyes and Jedediah Curry. Maybe there was hope for the future after all.

Jed and Han grinned at each other, each knowing what the other was thinking of his prize. Yup, they would certainly have a lot to talk about on their way home from school.

Author's Note: In 2005, the US Department of Education mandated that September 17th, Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, be celebrated by teaching all students in federally-funded schools about the history and meaning of the Constitution.


End file.
